Wednesday, March 5, 2014

50 minutes into Pacific Rim (2013)

Once again, late to the party. This is a giant robot vs monsters movie- they even call them "kaiju" (more on that, later). It's a good effort to copy the various Japanese giant robot cartoons, though these certainly aren't "super" robots like Mazinga Z, Raydeen or Gaiking. They are closer to the robots of Macross or Gundam, just machines that anyone trained can pilot.
Having said that, so far it's pretty fun. Sadly, most of the fights so far have been at night in the rain, which is par for the course (I fully expect the new Godzilla to do this as well) to help hide all the CG. And of course, the camera never stops moving. I'd sure like long shots of the fights to see them clearly.

So we have "kaiju" in this movie. Sure, it's cool to use that name. It's not really what they are, since they lack personalities. They are just animals designed for a specific purpose, and not unique. OK, they sort of are, but not really. Watch the movie, or see part two of my review when I finish watching the film.

And this is NOT a very exciting title. I don't understand this sort of thing at all. It's not even evocative of what's going on the movie. People might have thought it was about volcanoes or earthquakes or something like that.

Here's a nice shot in the daylight. Oddly enough, since it's emulating a television newscast, the camera stays still so we get a cool picture of the destruction in Australia.

So far I like the movie. The human drama is OK, and it's cool to find out why the creatures are being sent. Naturally some of the pilots don't like some of the other pilots. Here's hoping there are more fights in the day time. The robots could be a bit more streamlined, but they are better than most in the movies these days.